With the start of a new year, there’s a whole new slate of movies to look forward to. Hollywood is hoping 2015 will be a better year at the movies than 2014 was. But how will the movies of the new year stack up against the movies from 30 years ago. 1985 gave us some classic movies and its share of forgettable ones. In this month’s bracket game we’re going back in time to 1985 to pick our favorites from 30 years ago!
Before we get started, let me say a few words about the selection process. I looked over the Top 100 movies of 1985 and made a list of the movies that I thought were the most memorable today. Paring that list down to 16 movies was a daunting task. I had to drop some movies I would have liked to have included.
When in doubt, I picked movies I could pair against other movies in the opening round. Some movies paired up better than others. The Sylvester Stallone and Brat Pack pairings were naturals. I had to stretch a bit to pair up Commando with Witness. Unfortunately, I had to leave off Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Fright Night and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure. There were also forgettable movies like Jewel of the Nile and Teen Wolf that were relatively big at the time.
I won’t say these are the best movies of 1985. They are just a cross-section of 16 movies that I think represent the year reasonably well while also fitting into the structure of the game.
With all of that in mind, our first match is between two classic comedies from 1985. Chevy Chase had a busy year starring in National Lampoon’s European Vacation, Spies Like Us and Fletch. Of the three, Fletch was the most successful and the best remembered today. Fletch faces off against the time travel comedy, Back to the Future. Robert Zemeckis’ generational comedy starred Michael J Fox, Christopher Lloyd and Lea Thompson.
